So I called my insurance company this morning. They said that the dealership should be liable for damage that occurs when a vehicle is dropped on their property and that they carry insurance for just such occasions. This would suggest that the service manager that I was dealing with was -- you know, I keep trying to come up with a printable word to put here and failing. So you just imagine an appropriate word and I'll keep going.

My rep there sent me off to the claims line. The fellow I spoke to there said that there was little chance that the insurance company would pursue the dealership over a claim of this size, a fact of which the service manager was no doubt aware when he decided to stonewall me last night. But they'd get me an appointment with the glass folks they use to replace the windshield. I'd end up paying the $100 deductible on the work and could then suggest that maybe the dealership should, as he put it, man up and pay the deductible.

This afternoon, the windshield installer arrived. Well, it turns out that we'd had them replace this windshield back in 2006 after a bad encounter with a rock near Tucson, Arizona. And because there was no obvious reason for the windshield to have failed, replacing it is covered under their warranty for the original replacement windshield.

So it looks like we're not going to be out any money, just some sleep and stomach lining.

In the no news category, the dealership has yet to call me back, although the service manager there told me that he would be referring this up the chain. And that is something that's going to be referenced in the letter that I write tonight, along with the notation that this is my fourth and quite probably last Chrysler minivan, because I simply don't need to deal with the kind of service that I got from this particular "five star" dealership. Or the one that acquired our previous dealership where we bought the van.